Amid rising fears of a renewal of Sri Lankan’s protracted ethnic conflict, the authorities are stoking anti-Tamil amongst the majority Sinhalese and building the case for war. Schoolchildren are at frontline of this exercise in ‘manufacturing consent’ with frightening lectures by security officials on suicide bombings interspaced with false bomb alerts in schools.
Last week The Morning Leader reported how “school children at Visakha Vidayala were taught how to deal with suicide bombers” by member of the elite counter-insugency unit, the Special Task Force (STF).
ASP Gamini Walgama from the STF demonstrated how a suicide jacket is worn and how it is assembled to around 500 teenage students at the school auditorium.
ASP Welgama told the gathering that he had conducted more than 1000 such workshops already.
Videos showing the gory aftermath of past suicide bombings were screened for the children to look at.
A suicide jacket was put on a student and its functions explained. Flashing lights indicated the functions of the jacket and at the moment of the detonation a loud sound was heard from the outside. The frightening blast had been stimulated to give the real effect.
The students were then advised not to panic during a bomb scare and follow instructions.
The STF demonstration also included details of various types of explosives including claymore mines, the extent, speed and power of various explosions. Samples of various explosive were sent around for the students to have a closer look.
Some schools have been issued with metal detectors as “a security measure to prevent terror attacks on schools.”
Last month several schools in Colombo shut following warnings circulated that Tamil Tiger bombers were targeting schoolchildren.
School buses were turned away at key colleges while even some international schools, where mostly children of expatriates study, were also closed amid the bomb scare, officials told AFP.
Parents were seen rushing to schools to take back their children who had made it school at opening time.
“There is panic, total panic,” one government security official said. He claimed “It is the work of some pranksters who had been calling hospitals and warning that there would be bomb attacks against schools.”
AFP spoke to one parent, Chandana Wijenaike who said he did not send his daughter to Colombo’s Museaus College as several other parents had telephoned him early morning saying they were not sending their children to school because of a bomb threat.
Students who went to the Asian International School were turned away.
That bomb scare came ahead of the funeral of Sri Lanka Army General Parami Kulatunga, who was killed in a suicide bomb attack. Two months earlier, the Army Chief, Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka was seriously wounded in another bomb attack.
But these two blasts, along with another in 2004 reportedly targeting the leader of the anti-LTTE paramilitary group EPDP, have been the only suicide bombings in Colombo.
Neither has there been a history of schools in the south being targeted during the decades long conflict – even in retaliation for the bombings by the Air Force of numerous schools in the Northeast.
However, the lectures at schools by senior counter-insurgency officials, false alarms and even issuances of metal detectors are all contributing to a gnawing anxiety and, inevitably, renewed loathing for the Tamil Tigers.
This, some believe, is the purpose of the substantial effort the government of President Mahinda Rajapakse has thrown into the information campaign.
Colombo is a city on edge. Regular bomb scares keep it there.
In the past two weeks alerts sparked evacuations at the Immigration and Emigration Office, Sri Lanka’s main hospital and the headquarters of the National Savings Bank. Searches have turned up no suspicious objects.
But the waves of terror passing through ordinary Sri Lankans are quietly stoking animosity for the apparently ever-present enemy in the North. An enemy suspected to be aided and abetted by fellow Tamils in the south.
Last week The Morning Leader reported how “school children at Visakha Vidayala were taught how to deal with suicide bombers” by member of the elite counter-insugency unit, the Special Task Force (STF).
ASP Gamini Walgama from the STF demonstrated how a suicide jacket is worn and how it is assembled to around 500 teenage students at the school auditorium.
ASP Welgama told the gathering that he had conducted more than 1000 such workshops already.
Videos showing the gory aftermath of past suicide bombings were screened for the children to look at.
A suicide jacket was put on a student and its functions explained. Flashing lights indicated the functions of the jacket and at the moment of the detonation a loud sound was heard from the outside. The frightening blast had been stimulated to give the real effect.
The students were then advised not to panic during a bomb scare and follow instructions.
The STF demonstration also included details of various types of explosives including claymore mines, the extent, speed and power of various explosions. Samples of various explosive were sent around for the students to have a closer look.
Some schools have been issued with metal detectors as “a security measure to prevent terror attacks on schools.”
Last month several schools in Colombo shut following warnings circulated that Tamil Tiger bombers were targeting schoolchildren.
School buses were turned away at key colleges while even some international schools, where mostly children of expatriates study, were also closed amid the bomb scare, officials told AFP.
Parents were seen rushing to schools to take back their children who had made it school at opening time.
“There is panic, total panic,” one government security official said. He claimed “It is the work of some pranksters who had been calling hospitals and warning that there would be bomb attacks against schools.”
AFP spoke to one parent, Chandana Wijenaike who said he did not send his daughter to Colombo’s Museaus College as several other parents had telephoned him early morning saying they were not sending their children to school because of a bomb threat.
Students who went to the Asian International School were turned away.
That bomb scare came ahead of the funeral of Sri Lanka Army General Parami Kulatunga, who was killed in a suicide bomb attack. Two months earlier, the Army Chief, Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka was seriously wounded in another bomb attack.
But these two blasts, along with another in 2004 reportedly targeting the leader of the anti-LTTE paramilitary group EPDP, have been the only suicide bombings in Colombo.
Neither has there been a history of schools in the south being targeted during the decades long conflict – even in retaliation for the bombings by the Air Force of numerous schools in the Northeast.
However, the lectures at schools by senior counter-insurgency officials, false alarms and even issuances of metal detectors are all contributing to a gnawing anxiety and, inevitably, renewed loathing for the Tamil Tigers.
This, some believe, is the purpose of the substantial effort the government of President Mahinda Rajapakse has thrown into the information campaign.
Colombo is a city on edge. Regular bomb scares keep it there.
In the past two weeks alerts sparked evacuations at the Immigration and Emigration Office, Sri Lanka’s main hospital and the headquarters of the National Savings Bank. Searches have turned up no suspicious objects.
But the waves of terror passing through ordinary Sri Lankans are quietly stoking animosity for the apparently ever-present enemy in the North. An enemy suspected to be aided and abetted by fellow Tamils in the south.
